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The "Hard Knocks" Ralph Parlette talks about are also termed "bumps" in this collection of lessons life presents us. He says that when life bumps up against us and we learn the lesson, we do not have to endure it again. We move past it and use the experience as our teacher from which we expand our conscious appraisal of the situations we encounter. Because we are independent negotiators of the events that occur, we are often tempted by other attractive paths that lead us into ease and pleasure. If we move upwardly in our way of thinking about the future and do not succumb to instant gratification, we can change unhappiness to happiness, weakness to strength, anxiety to moral conviction, and ignorance to awareness. As we begin to understand things by our own sacrifice and travail, we discover immeasurable distances above us that we can include in our journey. We are able to rise over any obstacle or setback because we learn to truly see and hear. Parlette reminds us that it is not possible to purchase education or security. We cannot buy a prodigious intelligence. Our mind is only able to become great when it is a subordinate to more important issues in our life. As we develop more helpful attributes, our worries grow smaller. We have stationed ourselves to see from a different, more encompassing perspective. And even though we continue to do our best, out of nowhere a calamity descends upon us and breaks our heart. Our plans and schemes are ruined, and there is nothing to live for. But after this personal demolition and the psychological trash is swept away, honorable purposes are suddenly visible, and we are capable of more instruction and schooling in The University of Hard Knocks, the only college worth this excellent endorsement.
The Books Are Bumps
THE greatest school is the University of Hard Knocks. Its books are bumps.
Every bump is a lesson. If we learn the lesson with one bump, we do not get that bump again. We do not need it. We have traveled past it. They do not waste the bumps. We get promoted to the next bump.
But if we are "naturally bright," or there is something else the matter with us, so that we do not learn the lesson of the bump we have just gotten, then that bump must come back and bump us again.
Some of us learn to go forward with a few bumps, but most of us are "naturally bright" and have to be pulverized.
The tuition in the University of Hard Knocks is not free. Experience is the dearest teacher in the world. Most of us spend our lives in the A-B-C's of getting started.
We matriculate in the cradle.
We never graduate. When we stop learning we are due for another bump.
There are two kinds of people-wise people and fools. The fools are the people who think they have graduated.
The playground is all of God's universe.
The university colors are black and blue.
The yell is "ouch" repeated ad lib.
The Need of the Bumps
When I was thirteen I knew a great deal more than I do now. There was a sentence in my grammar that disgusted me. It was by some foreigner I had never met. His name was Shakespeare. It was this:
"Sweet are the uses of adversity; Which, like the toad, ugly and venomous, Wears yet a priceless jewel in its head; And thus our life, exempt from public haunt, Finds tongues in trees, books in running brooks, Sermons in stones, and good in everything."
"Tongues in trees," I thought. "Trees can't talk! That man is crazy. Books in running brooks! Why nobody never puts no books in no running brooks. They'd get wet. And that sermons in stones! They get preachers to preach sermons, and they build houses out of stones."
I was sorry for Shakespeare-when I was thirteen.
But I am happy today that I have traveled a little farther. I am happy that I have begun to learn the lessons from the bumps. I am happy that I am learning the sweet tho painful lessons of the University of Adversity. I am happy that I am beginning to listen. For as I learn to listen, I hear every tree speaking, every stone preaching and every running brook the unfolding of a book.
Children, I fear you will not be greatly interested in what is to follow. Perhaps you are "naturally bright" and feel sorry for Shakespeare.
I was not interested when father and mother told me these things. I knew they meant all right, but the world had moved since they were young, and now two and two made seven, because we lived so much faster.
It is so hard to tell young people anything. They know better. So they have to get bumped just where we got bumped, to learn that two and two always makes four, and "whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap."
But if you will remember some of these things, they will feel like poultices by and by when the bumps come.
The Two Colleges
As we get bumped and battered on life's pathway, we discover we get two kinds of bumps-bumps that we need and bumps that we do not need.
Bumps that we bump into and bumps that bump into us.
We discover, in other words, that The University of Hard Knocks has two colleges-The College of Needless Knocks and The College of Needful Knocks.
We attend both colleges.
After two years of marriage, Sadie was finally pregnant. Filled with hope and joy, she was blindsided when Noah asked for a divorce. During a failed attempt on her life, Sadie found herself lying in a pool of blood, desperately calling Noah to ask him to save her and the baby. But her calls went unanswered. Shattered by his betrayal, she left the country. Time passed, and Sadie was about to be wed for a second time. Noah appeared in a frenzy and fell to his knees. "How dare you marry someone else after bearing my child?"
She thought she was the love of his life, and he became the love of her life that fateful day she had seen him at the pack's party. Selene Grace was only a replica of Alpha Leo's real mate, and when he spotted her, Leo immediately claimed her as his Luna in order to suppress the rumors of him being mateless. Being unable to conceive turns Selene's marriage into a nightmare, and as if that wasn't enough, Alpha Leo finally reunites with his long time lover and mate, rejecting a pregnant Selene as a result. 5 years later, Selene, a now successful doctor, receives an invitation to the moon shadow pack in order to rid the pack of a deadly disease which has struck it. Will Selene return back to the pack which had caused her so much pain, and what would she do when she realizes that she is mated to the Alpha who had betrayed her in the past?
On the day of their wedding anniversary, Joshua's mistress drugged Alicia, and she ended up in a stranger's bed. In one night, Alicia lost her innocence, while Joshua's mistress carried his child in her womb. Heartbroken and humiliated, Alicia demanded a divorce, but Joshua saw it as yet another tantrum. When they finally parted ways, she went on to become a renowned artist, sought out and admired by everyone. Consumed by regret, Joshua darkened her doorstep in hopes of reconciliation, only to find her in the arms of a powerful tycoon. "Say hello to your sister-in-law."
In her previous life, Kimberly endured the betrayal of her husband, the cruel machinations of an evil woman, and the endless tyranny of her in-laws. It culminated in the bankruptcy of her family, and ultimately, her death. After being reborn, she resolved to seek retribution against those who had wronged her, and ensure her family's prosperity. To her shock, the most unattainable man from her past suddenly set his sights on her. "You may have overlooked me before, but I shall capture your heart this time around."
Linsey was stood up by her groom to run off with another woman. Furious, she grabbed a random stranger and declared, "Let's get married!" She had acted on impulse, realizing too late that her new husband was the notorious rascal, Collin. The public laughed at her, and even her runaway ex offered to reconcile. But Linsey scoffed at him. "My husband and I are very much in love!" Everyone thought she was delusional. Then Collin was revealed to be the richest man in the world. In front of everyone, he got down on one knee and held up a stunning diamond ring. "I look forward to our forever, honey."
For three years, Shane and Yvonne were wed, sharing heated nights, while his devotion clung to his ex. Yvonne strove to be a dutiful wife, yet their marriage felt hollow, built on desire rather than real warmth. All changed when she became pregnant, only for Shane to thrust her onto the operating table, warning, “Either you or the baby survives!” Broken by his cruelty, she vanished in grief and later returned, radiantly accomplished, leaving everyone awestruck. Haunted by remorse, Shane begged for another chance, but Yvonne only smiled and replied, “I’m sorry, men no longer interest me.”